Roanoke Island Festival Park

Roanoke Island Festival Park is a North Carolina state historic site located at the end of NC 400 in Manteo, North Carolina on Roanoke Island. The park includes a recreated 16th-century sailing ship, living history demonstrators, a museum, and a variety of performing and visual arts. Admission includes the main attractions and is valid for two days.

The newly renovated Adventure Museum features highly interactive, multi-sensory, hands-on exhibits fun for the entire family. Try your hand at pulling cargo on and off a 16th century ship-using your strength to go up and down with the ropes! Find our costume trunk and be part of Colonial Life. Bring the camera! Learn how 16th century sea captains made the most of wind and water currents as they sailed to the New World. See the routes they took to Roanoke Island. Visit our touch screens and read theories of what happened to the 1587 Roanoke Island Colony- and tell us what you think happened! Revisit the legend of Blackbeard and dress up like a pirate. Live the life of a soldier in our Civil War exhibit and discover the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony.

The Elizabeth II is a full-size representative 16th-century sailing ship that was designed and named after one of the seven ships used by Sir Walter Raleigh's fleet when he first brought colonists to Roanoke Island in 1587. The ship is a square-rigged bark with three masts, and 69 feet long, 17 feet wide and draws 8 feet of water. Guides dressed in period clothing portray the seamen and colonists who traveled to Roanoke with the fleet.

The ship was commissioned to be part of the 400th anniversary celebration of founding of Roanoke and America. Launched in 1983, she presented to the state as a State Historic Site on July 13, 1984 during ceremonies to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first English ships to the North Carolina Outer Banks.

Visit the Settlement Site and interact with costumed interpreters portraying the colonist men and women as they settled into life in the New World. Visitors can try their hand at blacksmithing, woodworking, 16th-century games and more. See how the first English settlers lived when they arrived in the New World. Try on some of their armor, learn some 16th-century warfare techniques and some of the arts and crafts needed to make life tolerable on Roanoke Island more than 400 years ago.

The "Legend of Two Path" is a 50-minute docu-drama film that portrays the views of the Algonquians about the arrival of the English colonists. The film was produced by the School of Film Making at University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and is shown several times a day in the 242-seat Film Theater.

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